A Smattering: Dragon Mother, Reading the Bible Makes You Liberal, and Sequenom Releases New Prenatal Test for Down Syndrome

Last updated on: October 21, 2011 at 9:01 am by Amy Julia Becker

A Smattering: Dragon Mother, Reading the Bible Makes You Liberal, and Sequenom Releases New Prenatal Test for Down Syndrome 2011-10-21T09:01:43-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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By now, many of you have already read Notes From a Dragon Mom, Emily Rapp’s beautiful and honest meditation about her son Ronan, who is terminally ill with Tay-Sachs disease. She writes,

How do you parent without a net, without a future, knowing that you will lose your child, bit by torturous bit?

Depressing? Sure. But not without wisdom, not without a profound understanding of the human experience or without hard-won lessons, forged through grief and helplessness and deeply committed love about how to be not just a mother or a father but how to be human.

Our experience with a child with Down syndrome is so so different. Penny is healthy and we assume she will live for many years to come. And yet having a child with a disability has also taught me much about how to be human. Perhaps it’s these places–birth, death, disability–that push us to the edges of our humanity, and therefore teach us how to live in the center in a more whole and full way.

On a somewhat related topic, Sequenom has released a non-invasive test that is 98% accurate in diagnosis Down syndrome as early as 10 weeks into a pregnancy. Click here to read the NY Times report about it. I have written about prenatal testing before–“Sometimes It’s Good Not to Have a Choice” and “Eliminating Suffering or Eliminating People?” And I will have more to say. For now, at least these links can get you started.

And on a totally different topic, reading the Bible can make you more liberal. Politically. Go figure. Read Aaron Franzen’s report: “Frequent Bible Reading Can Make You Liberal.”

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